Use of CT and artificial intelligence in suspected or COVID-19 positive patients: statement of the Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology

The COVID-19 pandemic started in Italy in February 2020 with an exponential growth that has exceeded the number of cases reported in China. Italian radiology departments found themselves at the forefront in the management of suspected and positive COVID cases, both in diagnosis, in estimating the severity of the disease and in follow-up. In this context SIRM recommends chest X-ray as first-line imaging tool, CT as additional tool that shows typical features of COVID pneumonia, and ultrasound of the lungs as monitoring tool. SIRM recommends, as high priority, to ensure appropriate sanitation procedures on the scan equipment after detecting any suspected or positive COVID-19 patients. In this emergency situation, several expectations have been raised by the scientific community about the role that artificial intelligence can have in improving the diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus infection, and SIRM wishes to deliver clear statements to the radiological community, on the usefulness of artificial intelligence as a radiological decision support system in COVID-19 positive patients. (1) SIRM supports the research on the use of artificial intelligence as a predictive and prognostic decision support system, especially in hospitalized patients and those admitted to intensive care, and welcomes single center of multicenter studies for a clinical validation of the test. (2) SIRM does not support the use of CT with artificial intelligence for screening or as first-line test to diagnose COVID-19. (3) Chest CT with artificial intelligence cannot replace molecular diagnosis tests with nose-pharyngeal swab (rRT-PCR) in suspected for COVID-19 patients.